• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.436-445
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• 2020

The number of protected areas has been steadily increased in Korea to achieve Aichi Target 11, and there are studies on potential protected areas that required additional designation. However, there has been an insufficient assessment of the complementarity of protected areas to conserve biodiversity effectively. This study identified the potential habitat areas using the species distribution model for plant species from the 3rd National Ecosystem Survey and compared the plant species abundance in the existing protected area and the potential protected areas using the similarity indices, such as the Jaccard index, Sorenson index, and Bray-Curtis index. As a result, we found that the complementarity of the existing protected areas and most potential protected areas were low, leading to the preservation of similar plant species. Only the buffer zone for Korea National Arboretum had high complementarity and thus is important to conserve some species with the other protected areas. This study confirmed that it was necessary to select additional protected areas outside the existing or potential protected areas to protect plant species with a low inclusion ratio of potential habitats within the protected area. This study is significant because it identified the ecological representativeness of each protected area to examine if the individual protected area can conserve unique and various species and proposed a method of finding candidate areas for additional conservation spatially. The findings of this study can be a valuable reference for the qualitative improvement of protected areas through the complementarity assessments, including animals and the effectiveness assessment study of protected areas using the National Ecosystem Survey data in the future.

• Korean Journal of Plant Taxonomy
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.29-34
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• 2009

The Chrysanthemum zawadskii complex is demarcated from other species by having the white and pink ligulate flowers. Its morphological characters are greatly diversified, so that various classification systems have been suggested. The character of leaf thickness has been mentioned as the characteristic for recognizing some of infra-specific taxa within this complex. In this study, we used longitudinal leaf sections to investigate the leaf thickness and cell number of leaf blades of 13 populations including those of the members of the C. zawadskii complex, as well as 4 populations of the related species of C. boreale and C. indicum. From the result, it was clear that the leaves were thicker in populations of C. boreale, C. indicum and C. zawadskii complex (diminishing in that order), and that the leaves were composed of about 9 cell layers in all populations. Within the C. zawadskii complex, leaf shape and thickness varied among the populations. It was very interesting that the taxa with restricted distribution, like C. zawadskii var. tenuisectum, C. zawadskii var. alpinum, C. zawadskii var. lucidum, and C. zawadskii subsp. coreanum had a thicker leaves than found among widely occurring taxa. From this, leaf thickness is supposed to be an adaptation to the unique habitat of each population.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.43-48
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• 2001

Chlorophyll fluorescence of needles of Korean fir (Abies koreana) plants and environmental factors of their natural habitat were investigated in order to obtain the information for environmental adaptation and conservation of Korean fir plants. The photochemical efficiency of photosystem II, Fv/Fm, of Korean fir needles was significantly low (0.19-0.36) in the winter, whereas it was high (0.8-0.86) in the summer. The Fv/Fm value of the winter was slightly higher at mid-day than at dawn, suggesting that mid-day environmental conditions of the winter were favorable on needles of Korean fir plants. In contrast, the mid-day Fv/Fm value of the summer maintained high (around 0.8). It indicates that mid-day environmental conditions of the summer did not induce photodamage, although it caused a slight decrease in the Fv/Fm values. The non-photochemical fluorescence quenching (NPQ) of Korean fir needles was very low (0-0.01) all through the day in the winter. However, it was high (0.76) at mid-day in the summer. These results suggest that Korean fir plants have a system for the protection of PS II from mid-day environmental stresses of the summer. In the winter, the Fv/Fm values were positively correlated with temperature, light intensity and relative humidity, although NPQ values showed no correlation with any of them. In the summer, the Fv/Fm values were positively correlated with relative humidity but negatively correlated with temperature and light intensity. These results indicate that increase of tempera-ture, light intensity and relative humidity lead to promotion of the photochemical efficiency in the winter and high temperature and light intensity may cause photoinhibition in the summer.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.48-67
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• 2021

Plant species exhibit current characteristics as a result of interactions with environmental conditions. The plants of Viola sp. have selected chasmogamous flowers with vigorous vegetative propagation or development of cleistogamous flowers as an adaptation strategy. Viola websteri is distributed on the Korean peninsula and the eastern part of Jilin Province, China. The center and edge of the distribution are expected to exhibit different population-dynamics. It is necessary to investigate the cause of its current limited distribution even though V. websteri has a mixed-mating strategy. Firstly, We examined the vegetation environment of habitats and evaluated its characteristics. Growth characteristics were examined through plant phenology. We then evaluated the population structure, characteristics of chasmogamous flowers, and productivity of cleistogamous flowers. Moreover, we compared population sizes between 2014 and 2018. Most habitats were located in deciduous broadleaf mixed forests adjacent to valleys. V. websteri produced chasmogamous flowers with self-incompatibility in April-May and cleistogamous flowers in June-September. The cleistogamous flower production is a strategy ensuring seed production under uncertain environmental fluctuations; these were approximately twice as numerous as chasmogamous flowers. The population structure was distinguished into stable and very unstable regions. There were sites where the population experienced a sharp decline in the 2018 compared to that of 2014. This large decline was found in the edge populations. The habitats had different microsites depending on the natural disturbances of drought and the matrix constituting the habitat, thus supporting various plants. Ensuring the production of seeds through cleistogamous flowers, it was determined that rapid seedling re-establishment and population replenishment were possible when the natural disturbance factor was removed. Environmental factors did not equally affect all populations or individuals. Therefore, it was expected that it would be able to persisted in a long time, despite the rapid decrease in the number of individuals in the population regionally. Local extinction and re-establishment are likely to repeat according to environmental change. We propose the additional population investigation based on this works are required. We also suggest a need to assess the long-term population dynamics and the genetic characteristics of chasmogamous flowers and cleistogamous flowers to establish and implement effective conservation strategies.